👃 What's That Smell?
Three pots, three smells, and a new word for each one.
🔍 Discover·10 min·Free·Ages 1–3·👶 Easy·🧑 Hands on · 3 min prep
⚠️ Safety first
Stay in the room. Lids taped shut, nothing spicy or strong, and no tasting. Not for under 1.
You know your child best — supervise the whole time and skip anything that isn't right for them. See our Terms.
Why this is good for your child
- ✓Smell
- ✓Vocabulary
🌱 Montessori-inspired · Sensorial
What you need
3 small pots · Cinnamon · Orange peel · Fresh herb
How to do it
- 1.Put one strong-smelling thing in each pot.
- 2.Hold one under their nose and name it.
- 3.Let them choose which to smell again.
How it actually goes
- ⏱ 30-second set-up —
- Thirty seconds: put 3 small pots, cinnamon, orange peel on a tray or a clear bit of floor, and sit down next to it before you call them over.
- 🧑 What you do —
- Show it once, slowly, without talking over yourself. Then hand it over and stop helping unless they ask.
- 👶 What they do —
- Touch, shake, sort and compare until it makes sense to them.
- ✅ What success looks like —
- At 1–2 they'll tip it out and put nothing back. That's the work — emptying comes long before filling.
- 🧺 How to put it away —
- Everything back into one basket or tray, carried back to its spot by them. Naming the spot out loud is what makes it stick.
- 📈 When they outgrow it —
- Older? Add a blindfold or a guessing round — same thing, harder.